The tragic death of core character Patrick Reid on Offspring last night drew 1.06 million viewers in the five major capital cities – about a third more than normal – and saw Channel Ten make a rare appearance in the top 5.

Killing off major characters causes a spike in ratings and Ten would have been mad not to capitalise on that.

The program peaked at 1.31 million, ranking at No. 4 overall, and was the top-trending topic on Twitter.

Fairfax Media was not privvy to his discussions with Channel Ten executives but it's a fair bet their response was along the lines of, "Like hell you will."

Killing off major characters causes a spike in ratings and Ten would have been mad not to capitalise on that.

Over the past week, the network heavily promoted the fact that Offspring character Nina Proudman, played by Asher Keddie, would lose someone important to her. In a bittersweet moment, Proudman will give birth to Reid's child in next week's season cliffhanger.

When regional ratings are added, Offspring drew almost 1.4 million viewers nationally, peaking at 1.72 million. (Note: all other figures in this story refer to the five major capital cities as full regional ratings are not yet available.)

Offspring's strong result gave fledgling comedy show This Week Live its best ratings yet with 587,000.

The program began immediately after distraught Offspring viewers watched Nina sobbing over Patrick's dead body.

Guest host Rove McManus began by jokingly "thanking" Channel Ten for now expecting him to make the nation laugh.

Ten's The Project also did well with 762,000 viewers while MasterChef drew 938,000.

Nine News had 1.28 million viewers, beating Seven News, which had 1.22 million.

Seven's Today Tonight won nationally with 1.05 million to A Current Affair's 1.03 million. TT also claimed victory in Sydney, having the narrowed the gap with ACA over the past few weeks. While TT was more than 100,000 viewers behind ACA in Melbourne, it was hampered by a poor lead-in from the perennially-underperforming Seven News, which trailed Nine's Melbourne bulletin by more than 200,000 viewers.

Again, Seven's early evening line-up got off to a bad start when Deal or No Deal was beaten by Nine's Millionaire Hot Seat.

The top digital channel program was Peter Rabbit on ABC2 followed by Neighbours on Eleven.

Love Offspring last night. It should have pulled a higher audience that slide show. I watched the first 15mins of it and that was too much. They were trying so hard to be funny. Way too forced and trying to be like Thank God You're Here. Seven are really taking the piss out of us. I see tonight they have 'formal wars' and 'marry my boy' for our viewing pleasure. Are they for real???

Commenter

Ame

Location

Date and time

August 08, 2013, 10:40AM

With the 'Slideshow' rating so well, it is official, Australia has WAY too many morons!!

Commenter

stevo60

Location

Victoria

Date and time

August 08, 2013, 2:25PM

Wow. Some people need to get a life. It's a TV show. There's a great big world out there. Get off the couch and do something with it!

I watched half an episode with my girlfriend. It's well acted but basically ridiculous and full of painfully drawn out drama. She seems to love it for some reason.

Commenter

rl

Location

sydney

Date and time

August 08, 2013, 12:18PM

Yes, I am male and have watched it from day 1. Amazingly written and acted show - yes it is a drama so it has 'soap' elements, but you could say the same about Mad Men - it is just men are 'allowed' to like Mad Men because the protagonist is male.

Commenter

ew75

Location

Sydney

Date and time

August 09, 2013, 6:23AM

Thought it was shows like these (& reality craps) that's caused the "death" of channel 10? It's as boring & predictable as the Neighbour..

Commenter

Ben

Location

Syd

Date and time

August 08, 2013, 12:04PM

No where have I seen MLN saying left the show to pursue his career overseas. He was pushed partly because Asher and the producers were worried Patrick was becoming more popular than Nina. I have read many comments from viewers saying they would have rather it was Nina killed off after the baby born and the series became about Patrick being a single father. Nina has been an idiotic caricature this year and I and many others will never watch Offspring again now MLN has gone